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Take a chubby, unspectacular half cucumber that's pining away in your produce drawer. Peel and seed it, cut it into chunks. Find a few triangles of cold watermelon in there, too, and cut those into chunks. Go out in your garden and pick leaves of mint and basil. Pull off the 3 Sungold tomatoes that are ripe, and harvest your very first Thai chile. You don't know if they're meant to be picked when they're lime green (like now) or if you should wait until they become red (will they?), but pick it anyway. Come back into the kitchen, and add the whole herb leaves, halved tomatoes and very thinly sliced and seeded chile to your salad. Put in a few chunks of firm feta. Gently toss. Squeeze a lime wedge over the whole thing, drizzle a little bit of olive oil purchased with the PFI gift certificate that your dear friend Sue gave you, and finish with flaky sea salt.

If you are unable to recreate this salad at exactly this moment, I am sad for you. Eating alone at my kitchen table today, I actually said aloud, "This is the best thing I have ever eaten." By now, you know to take whatever I say with a grain of (kosher) salt because I'm a little bit prone to exaggeration. But I'm sure you've had those serendipitous food moments when what was around (or put in front of you) was exactly what your taste buds wanted. This was one of those, and I started writing this entry the second I put my fork down. How I love having an audience! Thank you for indulging me again. I hope you are staying cool today.